Simpson Team Rejects Man’s Reward Offer

A lawyer for O.J. Simpson on Sunday rejected a New Jersey businessman’s offer to add $250,000 to the $500,000 reward the defense team is offering in the slayings of Simpson’s ex-wife and her friend.

Defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro termed “very generous” the offer made Saturday by real estate executive Bernard W. Gimbel. But Shapiro said that while he had spoken to Gimbel’s lawyer and would not discourage the businessman’s efforts, “we’re not working with him.”

Last week, Simpson’s lawyers announced the $500,000 reward for information leading to the “real killer or killers” of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Gimbel said he met O.J. Simpson a decade ago while playing tennis at a friend’s house. Several years later, he said, Simpson agreed to appear at a fund-raiser for the Bernard W. Gimbel Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center at a hospital in Teaneck, N.J.

“O.J. is somebody who is always willing to help others and now here’s something others can do to help him,” Gimbel said, adding that he hopes his offer will prompt other wealthy friends of Simpson’s to offer reward money, increasing the pot by several million dollars.

“With three or four million, someone would come forward and squeal on their mother,” Gimbel said.

He said he believes the former football star was charged with the murders merely “because he’s high-profile.”

Simpson, who remains in custody, pleaded not guilty to murder charges at his Superior Court arraignment Friday.

A hearing is scheduled this morning on, among other things, a motion by the defense seeking the right to conduct its own DNA tests on blood samples collected at the murder scene and Simpson’s home.